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History as it happened. In Part One we hear radio station KLIF begin its coverage of president John F. Kennedy's visit to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.
The president's plane is greeted at Love Field. Following live coverage of the airport arrival is the Noon News.

Then we join the Rex Jones show on in progress on Part Two. Mid-way through "I Have a Boyfriend" by the Chiffons, we hear the first bulletin of a shooting in President Kennedy's motorcade. Slowly, KLIF's happy-go-lucky sound is replaced with a more somber approach, with wall-t-wall coverage of the shooting eventually replacing the music format. Part Two ends with the flash: The president is dead.

Part Three covers the immediate aftermath of the assassination and the hunt for the suspect. Reaction begins to pour in to Dallas from around the world.

As the assassination took place during the lunch hour on a weekday, most people learned of the event via the radio, not television. This is an astounding recording that illustrates how many citizens of the Dallas / Ft. Worth first heard the news of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.


This audio is part of the collection: Community Audio
It also belongs to collection:

Artist/Composer: Free the Airchecks!
Date: 1963-11-22
Keywords: John F. Kennedy; John Fitzgerald Kennedy; KLIF; radio; Dallas; Texas; November 22; 1963; JFK; Kennedy assassination

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: kturnerga - - November 22, 2012
Subject: Not completely wall to wall on Part 1
I heard the tape and noticed that the song played after the ads following the 12:30 newscast had remarkable fidelity and didn't transition smoothly from the previous material. I wonder if it was not dubbed in by someone (I doubt it was the National Archives). The Beach Boys song prior to the news has some audio scoped out. This copy may have been altered before or after the National Archives got hold of it.

Reviewer: zensixties - - October 5, 2012
Subject: Excellent Live radio coverage!
This is an "as-it-happened" recording of live Dallas radio coverage. We get a good glimpse of 1963 radio style with heavy reverb and such. Segment one says all security precautions have been "checked, rechecked, and checked again". Segment two has music and the news bulletin of shots fired. Segment 3 is all coverage after JFK was declared dead.